NATIVITY OF THE LORD (Mass of the day)
Sunday 25 December 2022
Jn 1:1-18
“And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth”.
(Jn 1:14)
This is the absolute novelty of the New Testament: the Word has become flesh, the Word has become man. In order to better understand the passing from the Old to the New Testament, we can remind ourselves of what happened to the prophet Jeremiah. He received the command from the Lord to go down to the potter’s hut, and there he saw the potter modelling the clay in his hands as “seemed good to him”, creating and realising what he planned. While contemplating this scene, the Lord speaks to Jeremiah, saying: “Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel” (Jer 18:6b).
With the Incarnation, the situation is reversed. The potter becomes the clay, God becomes man!
So, we’re not followers of Christian culture or even Christian doctrine, but of a person: Jesus Christ, true God and true man!
The Incarnation reminds us of the concrete substance of our call to be Christians. We are called to bear witness to the presence of Jesus, in every circumstance, despite anything we might face!
Fr. Giuseppe
